Where Should You Start With Health? Identify the One Habit Holding You Back | Dr. Andy Galpin | Be Well Moments

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:11Starting at the beginning for most people, I think that's where I always like to start when it comes to health. What I've seen and what I know from people that write into the show is that people really want to live well. They really have, most people have that urge to think they're doing the right thing, to want to do as much as they can. even if they don't have very much. But where would you say most people should start if they want to have good performance and live well and be well, which is the whole reason I named the show that? Yeah, sure. Well, I think the fact that they're listening, tuning in, following on social media already says they want that step.

0:45Yeah.

0:49And whether they realize it or not, they're going to take that step because they've already made the big step, which is to care. Now, what do you do? My general advice here is find the thing that is what we call the biggest performance anchor. So imagine that we're maybe not here in London, but imagine if we're in San Francisco or some other city that has a lot of up and downs and you're driving your car down the hill and you want to go faster. People's first inclination is to hit the gas pedal, the accelerator. But my first coaching step is let me look at the brake first, because if you are going down the road and you're going downhill and then you hit the accelerator, you will go faster.

1:31But if your left foot is on the brake, you'll go faster, but not as fast as you could. And two, you're going to put more wear and tear on your car. You're going to break down sooner. And so the first step to going faster is actually just removing that anchor, that brace. What's hitting that brake pedal? And if we can move that, you'll go faster and you'll have less wear and tear. And then if you want to go faster on top of that, now we can hit the accelerator. Where most people start with, you know, in the shorter version, the rapid fire question you asked about hacks and tips and things, those mostly fall into the accelerator category.

2:06And they're awesome if you're truly at that level. But what are the foot on your brakes? They're different for everyone. These anchors are the things that you hate the most about yourself. That's within your control. The thing that is actually legitimately your worst health activity or habit or status. And don't do anything else besides that. Go deal with that now. Maybe this is obesity. Maybe this is mental health. Maybe this is a eating practice or a micronutrient. What is the thing that you're struggling the most with? And go do that. And so if your sole focus is simply saying, okay, it's my body composition I don't like the most, like, okay, then that is your first health practice.

2:53It is maybe your body composition is fine, but you think it is, and maybe really this is a mental health, fine, go address that. whatever our case is. And I'm really truly saying that as a, not a non-answer, it's a genuine answer because I coach a lot of people. And this, I'm telling you, this is the exact approach we take. And I coach professional athletes in every sport, the highest paid contracts in the NFL, in golf, in baseball, the Cy Young winners, the MVPs. And we coach a load of regular humans too. men women 30 50 years old seven years old like we coach a ton of them this is the exact system we use i can't be more direct and honest with that answer when i say we have changed countless lives i think i said earlier about climbing mount everest we had somebody that did that after like no athletic background no nothing and we got him to mount everest we've had tons of just general people who are like starting their fitness journey right i don't know what to do at all and I'm just starting.

3:58I went, okay, fine. So we have these like elite high performers. That's what like I love the most personally. And it's what I do. But within the people that I have directly, and we are still coaching, we've done this. Like this is exactly what we do. And we're not perfect, but we've had a lot of success because that's where we start. If our aptitude, whether it is your money or your time or your resources or your mental bandwidth or your grit allows you one particular goal, always start with the thing that's the biggest thorn in your side. And just, if that takes a year, I don't really care. Because if we think about it took a year, but now I've got this thing that's been driving me nuts for 10 years, 15, 20 years, out of the way, we got the next 30 to start going to chase accelerators.

4:46Like we just have to think on a little bit of a larger timeline with this and be more realistic. So we always give our clients, of course, six-week and six-month goals, but we also put them year-long programs and then decade-long programs so that they understand, hey, look, I know you're concerned about A, B, and C, but the reality of it is this is your biggest problem over here. It's D. Give us the six months and then we'll come back. We'll get you A, B, and C. But if we can unlock this thing over here, this is immediate versus delayed gratification stuff, right? So this is your sleep or whatever your case is.

5:23That's where we're going to go. Now, like, candidly, it can get pretty complicated figuring out what that performance anchor really, really is. But I guess maybe the lesson we could distill the most out of this is try to be a little more focused. When people do 30 or 40 things or maybe even three or four, and this is also classic, like, marketing and everything, right? You say 12 things, no one does anything. If you say one really clear thing, someone might do it. So use that message on yourself. Like, this is my thing. I'm just working on this. I'm just working there like a really specific singular focus.

6:01You have much more likelihood of success by doing that. Now, last thing I'll say on that is sometimes people have to rip the bandaid off with lifestyle. and it's like, all right, I got to clean the house because I can't just work out because my eating is also terrible. And that's when I eat bad, then I don't want to work. Oh, okay. Like I get it. Sometimes we got to like rip the lifestyle off the bandaid. But in that particular case, it's still one thing. It is saying I'm overhauling lifestyle. Like that's still, you can still do it, distill it down to one goal. I'm not worried about body comp.

6:33I'm not worried about this. Like I'm just cleaning house. And so I'm going to not be around this friend anymore. I'm going to not do this thing at night anymore. I've got to work. Fine, but I'm overhauling lifestyle. And the results will come later because I know this is the right process. So we will still frame that as like one focus for now. And this would be an action focus versus an outcome focus, but we'd still call that one thing. Thanks so much for listening. To hear the full episode, there's a link in the description.

7:10Thank you.